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Spoilers and photos of this weekend’s upcoming Shining Inheritance/Brilliant Legacy have been released, and while the (frelling) site won’t let me save or hotlink the photos, Eun Sung’s can be found here(Han Hyo Joo is so my new girl-crush, along with Lee Soo Kyung) and Woo Hwan’s here(Lee Seung Gi gets both cuter and more hot every episode – how is that possible? He’s one of those rare actors – along with Gong Yoo – whose smile transforms his entire face)

Shining Inheritance/Brilliant Legacy is such a good, good, solid drama. I’m not sure yet whether it will go into favorite-dramas of all time, but it will certainly fit easily and solidly into second-tier along with Corner with Love, My Lucky Star, etc. etc. I would have sworn, previous to this, that no drama could make me get through 14 episodes without significant romance – but boy I was wrong. Granted, I’m still a little bit unhappy, especially now that things are heating up romantically, but, overall – if I had to wait this long in order for it to be this good, it was worth it🙂 Shining Inheritance doesn’t break any kdrama traditions or conventions as far as plot or style goes, but it’s just so solidly written, paced, plotted, and acted that you can’t help but adore it and be completely hooked anyway. It’s got that great, hard-to-attain balance of comedy and angst/emotion, and Han Hyo Joo and Lee Seung Ki are just too amazing for words.🙂 The one quibble I have with it is that far too much time is spent, imo, on the evil characters and on side characters such as Eun-seung’s Dad, all of whom I find completely uninteresting(I had this problem with Cain and Abel too), so I’m pretty constantly doing fast-forwarding(thank God for the fastforward button). All in all, while it doesn’t inspire in me the mad passionate frenzy that dramas like Mars etc. have, I have a deep, deep affection for this drama. In fact, I love it enough that I made an MV of it:) (there weren’t any on Youtube so I thought I’d give it a shot)

Alright, so Lee Seung Ki may not be the most gorgeous man ever(and I simply can’t get over how young he looks! seriously, he brings a whole new definition to the term “baby face”. The boy barely looks a day over 20. Although upon checking Dramawiki I discover that he is in fact not much over 20, being 22, and that even though Han Hyo Joo looks older than him she is in fact the same age) but he’s got charisma to spare and is having no trouble thus far portraying his spoiled, anger-management-classes-needed character, so I’ll forgive him.

And Han Hyo Joo has pleased me by showing that she can in fact handle angst as well as bubbles – in episode 2, Eun Sung’s life falls spectacularly apart, and only spirals downward through episode 4, and HHJ handles the requisite gradual breakdown/tears/anger/grief just fine, especially in one semi-climactic scene with Ban Hyo Jung(the grandmother, also stellar) in episode 4 in which she finally reaches the end of her tether.

I am pleased also by Bae Soo Bin as Jun Se, the secondary guy, because while he’s an incredibly kind person and mildly good-looking and has a sense of humour, he’s not charismatic or, let’s face it, good-looking enough to really make me invested in the Jun Se/Eun Sung pairing, particularly as, thank God, they only have decent and not amazing chemistry(at least thus far).

I’ve reached episode 5 and things are about to take a sharp turn upwards.

Cast

After hearing raves from both friends and critics, I decided to start watching Shining Inheritance/Brilliant Legacy. And I’m quite pleased with it so far; the word that springs to mind is that it’s a very very solid kdrama. The opening scene is interesting and does a good job of setting up the four main characters and foreshadowing their future relationships; the actors and actresses are all sufficiently good-looking and charming and expressive(at least thus far) and the plot, while hardly, original, is compelling enough – it’s very hard, after all, to go wrong with a Cinderella story, which is pretty much what Shining Inheritance is. Han Hyo-Joo of Iljimae and Spring Waltz plays Go Eun Sung, the pretty, strong-willed daughter of the president of a major food company, while relative newcomer Lee Seung Ki plays her future love interest and Bae Soo Bin and Moon Chae Won round out the requisite drama foursome. Han Hyo-Joo is one of the major reasons I started watching this – I haven’t seen a drama with her before but she really caught my eye in the stills for it – and thus far she doesn’t disappoint; she carries off with ease the charming headstrong nature her character is supposed to present, though I’m watching her with an eagle eye to see whether she can also pull off the finer nuances of angst/deep emotion which I’m sure will be required of her in future. Some drama actors/actresses can only do either angst or cuteness, not both. The best excel at both and can switch back and forth with ease. I’m also interested to see that one of the characters is her autistic brother; Korean dramas deal more often than Western entertainment with mental illness/handicapped children but still not very often, so this is rather refreshing.

So yes. It’s solid. My main doubts remain whether it can go from solid to amazing, or at least remain on solid ground, and whether Han Hyo Joo is just a good or a very good actress, and whether Lee Seung Ki is good-looking to retain my interest for 26 episodes.

Summaries of the previews can be found under the cut(just in case someone wants to get an idea of what’s going to happen without knowing exactly what goes on)

Pickled Tofu meanwhile has spoilers for the last two episodes and tons of BOF-related news, as usual. I am remaining deliberately(and somewhat desperately) spoiler-free for these last two episodes, so I myself haven’t read them, but if you feel inclined then enjoy!

And an amazing BOF music video.

I must admit, I am going to miss the mingled hate and love BOF has always created in me.

Download from Arashi-vox(this time I’m linking directly to the file because she has a huge spoiler in her post right before the link, which I was highly annoyed to have to read before getting to the file). Change the file name from “GBN23.avi.dumb” to “GBN23.avi” so that you can watch the video. Or watch online at Veoh or at Youtube.

I posted a comment in response to the Dramabeans commentary on this episode, and this is essentially what I said-
“It’s very odd because the Makino character is written as a highly spunky, self-sufficient, mentally and emotionally courageous character who doesn’t need anyone else, whether friends or a boyfriend, to get by, but this rendition of her portrays her as almost the exact opposite; she falls apart as soon as Junpyo breaks up with her and doesn’t really get it back together until they’re together again. She doesn’t ever even really stand up to Mama Kang, for heavens sake! Both Junpyo and Jandi are frustratingly and consistently passive however; their relationship is defined and propelled by other people – everything they do, from breaking up to getting back together, is as a result of the efforts of other people, their friends and family. Personally, I find Junpyo’s passivity more widespread and frustrating – Jandi has more reason for it in my opinion – but both are far, FAR too weak in general – I consider them as characters essentially ruined. It’s a pity especially since the manga characters they’re based on are defined by their driving(sometimes even over-done) forcefulness.

I’m all about Jihoo and Jandi in this series – even their reactions to everything show how much better of a man Jihoo is than Junpyo. Jihoo reacts to his grief over Jandi’s absence by throwing himself into work for his grandfather and looking after his grandfather, while Junpyo goes out and starts drinking and toying with girls and eventually ends up arrested. Which is the more mature? Jihoo would be deeply awesome in and of himself – the ultimate best friend/amazing boyfriend material – even without the contrast with Junpyo, but the contrast with Junpyo only highlights even more all of his amazing qualities. He and Jandi have such a warm, deep friendship – so many of their interactions are so Main-Couple/OTP-like. One the one hand, we have Jandi/Jihoo, who frankly have many more scenes together, showing them doing fun, happy, ordinary things and integrating into each other’s world’s perfectly, and on the other hand we have Junpyo and Jandi, out of whom we get a few big splashy scenes(is it must me or is there always fireworks/stars going on around them) and some nice little touches like how they look back at each other as Junpyo leaves their date in this episode – but overall precious little time together and 80% of that time taken up by fighting/bickering/angsting. It’s no wonder, given this and what a disappointment Junpyo’s character is and how awesome they made Ji-Hoo and how much time they spent building up the Jandi/Ji-Hoo relationship, whether friendship or no, that so many of us have gone over to supporting the Jandi/Jihoo pairing”

Lots of caps. And yes, I did cap the Junpyo/Jandi part as it was adorable and I’m not going to miss the chance to cap two gorgeous people in a gorgeous setting, even if I personally am not in love with them.

I wanted to cry several times during episode 22. Not because of Junpyo, although he and Ji-Hoo have it arguably equally bad, but because Ji-Hoo, unlike Junpyo, doesn’t DESERVE this.

This episode was both brilliantly and frustratingly self-aware. First off, the exchange between Jaekyung and Ji-Hoo was AMAZING, definitely one of the things the kdrama has thrown in that’s a great improvement off jdrama and twdrama, and it did, in a sort of shutting-the-barn-door-after-the-horse-has-gone way address the problem it has set up of how well the Ji-Hoo/Jandi pairing has been covered. As Jaekyung says to Ji-Hoo, in one of the few bits of absolutely brilliant(within context) dialogue I’ve heard this series, “They say people get what they’re greedy for…neither you nor I have enough greed.” This is a very good way of explaining/justifying why Ji-Hoo, after all the scenes between he and Jandi and all the focus on how amazing he is, doesn’t get the girl – he’s too good, too noble in a way, he didn’t ask from Jandi more than she could give and so he didn’t get it. It still feels like a cop-out, however – if this explanation had come, say, 4 or 5 episodes earlier and all Ji-Hoo/Jandi interactions, particularly OTP-type reactions, had stopped immediately, this would have made perfect sense. As it is, it feels a bit like a sop thrown to us to justify the irrational Ji-Hoo/Jandi focus over the past 6 episodes or so, and does anyone else think this perfectly rational conclusion was a tad undermined by the incredibly warm and OTP-like interactions which follow between Ji-hoo and Jandi IN THE SAME EPISODE?? No? Maybe that was just me.